Without limiting the scope of the invention, its background is described in connection with ion deposition on a surface or a substrate.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,948,703 issued to Shen and Yang, 1999 describes a soft-landing etch process to form an oxide layer with uniform thickness on an open area between flash memory transistors on a substrate. A dielectric oxide layer, such as silicon dioxide, is formed on a semiconductor substrate. A polysilicon layer used to form gates of flash memory transistors is then formed on the oxide layer. The polysilicon layer is covered with a layer of conductive material, such as tungsten silicide (WSi). A cap polysilicon layer is deposited on the conductive layer. An anti-reflecting coating, such as SiON, is formed on the cap polysilicon layer. A photo-resist mask comprising a pattern defining a gate is formed on the surface of the anti-reflecting coating. The soft-landing etch process performed to expose oxide layer on the substrate area between flash memory transistors includes three etch steps. The first etch step is carried out to remove materials covering the gate polysilicon layer on the area between flash memory transistors. Then, the second etch step having high polysilicon-to-oxide selectivity is performed to remove polysilicon covering the oxide layer on the open area. The third etch step is conducted to clean polysilicon residues from the oxide layer surface on the open area.
U.S. Patent Application No. 20090011953 (Cooks et al. 2009) discloses methods and apparatuses that utilize mass spectrometry for preparation of a surface to have catalytic activity through molecular soft-landing of mass selected ions. Mass spectrometry is used to generate combinations of atoms in a particular geometrical arrangement, and ion soft-landing selects this molecular entity or combination of entities and gently deposits the entity or combination intact onto a surface.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,081,617 issued to Mclean et al. 2006 discloses a method and device for the gas-phase separation of ionic biomolecules including peptide, and protein or inorganic cluster ions or nanoparticles by ion mobility and for depositing them intact on a surface in a spatially addressable manner. The surface onto which the proteins are deposited can be modified for the purpose of constructing microarrays of biologically relevant materials or for promoting the growth of highly ordered protein crystals.